World Open - Day 6

06:08:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

The Whirlwind in action
What a wonderful day for snooker was yesterday! I know you all have been waiting for the match between "The Whirlwind" and "The Rocket" and I’m pretty sure that the two snooker icons didn’t let you down. But the snooker lovers were in for a real feast, for the other matches were top class also. So let’s begin in telling the story of the sixth day of the World Open tournament.


Yes, of course I’m going to start by commentating the match of the day between Jimmy White and Ronnie O`Sullivan! :-P. But before that I should inform you about the poll results. Yesterday I was asking you who would you like to be the winner of the match mentioned at the beginning of this sentence. Although I didn’t receive many votes, 80% of you voted for Jimmy and 20% for Ronnie. I think one must love a legend, right? ;-)
So, the first frame was won by Ronnie, even if he wasn’t in his best form; he needed to warm up a bit and do did Jimmy. The second frame, a break of 79 and "The Rocket" was going for the victory. On FaceBook and on different forums, many of us were cheering for Jimmy’s comeback...and I’m pretty sure he heard us, for he won the third frame with a beautiful break of 88!. Well, of course I’m kidding and he didn’t hear us....but what’s really important is that he won a frame… because Ronnie was going to win the next. Final score: 3-1.

Ronnie`s second job - biting his nails
We all knew who was going to be the winner of this match, but that didn’t stopped us to cheer for Jimmy! A legend is simply a legend! And the respect for a legend is endless! Ronnie is Ronnie...you don’t mess with the guy! He’s a terrific snooker player and it’s practically impossible to say that you don’t appreciate his game. He’s a top player!
I think this was the first time since the start of this tournament when I really didn’t bond with the short format. It would have been nice to see those two playing the best of 10, at least! It was a beautiful match, that kind of match that you wish to see more often. But be prepared, for Ronnie entered the last 16 and today he’ll fight another snooker legend - the mighty Stephen Hendry! You don’t want to miss this match, believe me! :-)

The sensational Ding
The second match of the day was going to bring together the Hong Kong cue man, Marco Fu and the Englishman Andrew Higginson in a match that was a little bit surprising, especially if you were to consider the final score. I think I’m not the only one who thought that the score was going to be tighter than 3-1 (which by the way, it isn’t). But Andrew knows his business well, so he won the match going straight into the quarter-finals where we’ll fight the current world champion, the Australian Neil Robertson.
Keeping it Asian, the little Chinese Ding Junhui whitewashed Marcus Campbell with a 3-0 scoreline. What a wonderful performance for Ding who’s playing better and better. He is only 23 years old, but he had already won 2 UK Championships, one China Open and one Northern Ireland Trophy. Sensational!

Williams and Hawkins showed us what class snooker is all about
The evening session was going to bring us pure class snooker, for "The Welsh Potting Machine" and "The Hawk" were going to fight for a cozy place in the quarter-finales. Mark Williams won the first frame with a beautiful 112 break! It was an exceptional start for this match! From that moment on, the two players were one frame apart all the time and it was not a big surprise to see that a decisive frame was going “to pick” the winner. Mark was on fire all night long and to be honest....he’s been like that since the Premier League so he won the last frame drawing the line at 3-2. What a spectacular match it was! Both players are really good and there were many times when this fact was so obvious! I mean a great shot after another from both sides! That’s how class snooker looks like!
Peter Ebdon and the patience test for endless matches

The last match of the day was the one between Peter Ebdon and Liu Song. And you can imagine that if Peter was involved, the match was really slow :-P... it lasted about 3 hours, with 55 minutes only for the last frame! What an effort! Even if the match ended on a decider, it wasn’t high quality snooker and it definitely wasn’t entertaining. But in the end Peter won 3-2 after a struggling battle. What I really admire about Liu is his determination to play. He knew he was out of the circuit, he knew he had nothing to lose, but he still played quite well and showed his respect to the sport by doing so.


The century breaks for yesterday were: Ding Junhui (110) and Mark Williams (112).


Another ten names and another five matches wait for their winners. Today’s list of players looks something like this:
Ronnie O`Sullivan v. Jimmy White
Marco Fu v. Andrew Higginson
Marcus Campbell v. Ding Junhui
Mark Williams v. Barry Hawkins
Peter Ebdon v. Liu Song


And you can watch the boys by following this schedule:
11:30 - 12:30 (EuroSport)
12:30 – 16:30 (BBC 2)
12:30 - 17:00 (EuroSport)
19:00 – 20:00 (BBC 2)
19:00 - 22:00 (EuroSport)
24:50 – 01:40 (BBC 2)
01:40 – 03:40 (BBC 2 Extra)

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